Carina has been typing on the internets before there was a www in front of everything. This is why she’s cranky and wants to know when you’ll get off her lawn. She resides in a hopelessly outdated home in the Mountain West with a mathematician and three children hell-bent on destruction. Her laundry is not done, but her Twitter is totally up to date. Carina does not have a Tumblr, because get serious.

Cleaning a Mercury Spill

I’ve switched to CFL bulbs in my house–compact fluorescent lights. While it’s saving me a bundle on my energy costs, I’m nervous about one feature of CFLs: toxic mercury inside the bulbs. Even though I carefully handle CFLs, including keeping a designated bin in the garage where used bulbs go until I recycle them, I’m preparing myself for the day when one breaks inside my home. Another concern is if you have an old-fashioned mercury thermometer that happens to shatter on a surface. I’d like to blame the kids for hypothetically smashing glass and mercury, but I’m the butterfingers most likely to cause an environmental incident in my own home.

The amount of mercury in a CFL is small, about the same amount as the tip of a ballpoint pen, but you want to be careful handling it anyway–THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO HAVE THE KIDS HELP YOU.

Comments (12)

Another thing, if the bulb breaks near fabrics (I broke one in the laundry room), you have to throw out the fabrics because you don’t want to spread the mercury powder in the washing machine effectively contaminating all your laundry.These bulbs are a sore subject with me because folks aren’t being adequately informed on proper cleanup. Instructions should be listed on the box!

I’ve broken a few CFL’s, cleaned them up as you described above (after doing a quick and panicked google search), and haven’t seen any ill effects over the years (knock on wood). My favorite was when my 3 year old saw the burned-out CFL in the box, waiting to be taken to the haz mat dump, and decided to recycle it for me, complete with stomping on it to break down the box. ARGH!

We are slowly making the change to LED bulbs. After breaking an entire box of CFLs and the pain it was to clean up, the cost of LEDs is worth it. We buy one every few months or so. LED still has a lot of catching up to do to be a big contender in the home market, but the dangers of CFL are *sooo* not worth it to me!!